1. Field of the Invention:
This invention relates, in general, to watthour meters and, specifically, to socket adapters for watthour meters.
Electrical power is supplied to an individual site or service by external electrical power line conductors located above or below ground. In a conventional arrangement, the electrical power line conductors are connected to a watthour meter socket. The supply load electrical conductors are connected to a set of contacts in the socket. A watthour meter is plugged into the socket to measure the electric load or power used at the site or service.
For special applications, such as on-line metering of an individual load, etc., auxillary enclosures or boxes have been attached or mounted to the watthour meter socket and/or socket adapter and contain an electrical outlet or other electrical connector attached to the power line conductors or contacts in the meter socket for powering external devices mounted in the auxillary enclosure. However, the electrical power supplied to the auxillary enclosure is used solely by devices mounted within such enclosure and has not been previously provided to power external devices outside of the auxillary enclosure. Furthermore, access to such auxillary enclosures has solely been available to the electrical utility company.
Telephone service is also supplied to an individual site through telephone line conductors extending from external telephone lines to each individual site. Telephone lines are powered separately from the electrical power line conductors and operate even if electrical power is discontinued or interrupted at the individual site.
A recent innovation in the telephone industry is the use of fiberoptic cables to transmit telephone messages. Such cables have the advantage of significant noise reduction as well as a substantial increase in the number of separate messages which may be transmitted over a single cable. However, fiberoptic cables have only been used in the main distribution networks of the telephone company. They have not yet been applied to radials extending from the distribution lines to each individual site requiring telephone service.
In such fiberoptic telephone systems, optical network interfaces (ONI) have been employed to convert the telephone signal on copper telephone conductors to an optical signal for transmission over the fiberoptic telephone line and vice versa. Each optical network interface requires electric power thus necessitating connection to an electrical power conductor at each individual building or house site. While individual, hard-wired connections may be provided between the electrical power line conductors and an optical network interface at each site, such an installation is costly in terms of installation time and labor as well as requiring local or national wiring codes to be followed at each installation site.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide means for connecting electrical power to an optical network interface at an individual site having telephone service provided through fiberoptic cables which is both easy and inexpensive to install at each site. It would also be desirable to provide means for providing electric power to an interface which provides separate access for the electric utility company and other public services or commercial entities to their respective equipment.